You must sacrifice the pleasures of today for the freedom you will earn tomorrow. In my 20s, I shared a studio with my best friend from high school and drove beater cars worth less than 10% of my annual gross income. I'd stay until after 7:30 p.m. at work in order to eat the free cafeteria food. International vacations were replaced with staycations since work already sent me overseas two to four times a year. Clothes were bought at thrift shops, of course.

Ebooks are one of my favorite sources of passive income. Now, you can do this the simple way and just publish it on Amazon's KDP. Or, you can go all out and build yourself a book funnel. Book funnels are powerful, but they won't be fully passive. For example, if you do a free-plus-shipping offer for your ebook (converting it into a physical book), you'll need to create some one-time offers (i.e. extra training) and up-sells (i.e. an audiobook). But, a book funnel can be very powerful.
Thanks for writing this Mr. Samurai. I just got over the student loan hump but I feel pretty good about it at 27 having a graduate degree and being 100% debt free. Now that I’m on the other side it is good for my brain to absorb some of your knowledge regarding passive income investments. I love gleaning wisdom from older folks who have been there and done that. Mentors rock!
I just can’t seem to get my head around creating my own online product. When you talk about it, you make it sound like its mostly just about putting in the time and plugging away at it. Problem is I can never seem to come up with any ideas for a site or product that seem remotely unique or compelling or that I have any special knowledge about. The stuff I do know about is pretty commodity type knowledge that can mostly be found on thousands of sites on the internet already. Any tips on discovering what your “unique angle” is? I mean, you have a pretty compelling and somewhat unique personal story of working on wall street and then walking away at a young age.
First: I understand why you would say that such investments are restricted to only accredited investors, because generally, that’s true. There are means, under federal securities regulations and Blue Sky laws in each state, to sell interests to non-accredited investors – but usually those means are so heavily regulated and involve disclosures so similar to cumbersome registration requirements that it is not worth it for the seller to offer to non-accredited investors.
There are, however, several misconceptions that serve to confuse investors. Unfortunately, it is these misconceptions that are preventing many investors from realizing truly passive income and potentially limitless wealth building opportunities. Nine misconceptions, in particular, could be putting your investment efforts in jeopardy? So what are they? Perhaps even more importantly, how can you navigate them to realize the potential your investing business really has?
Which all goes back to my point – since companies change in a lot of unpredictable ways, it makes more sense for passive income to just ride the market by investing in a Total Domestic Stock Market, Total Bond Market, and Total International index funds, with allocations that depend on your goals and time horizon. For income, withdraw 4% or less, depending on what research you believe, and you’ve got a pretty low risk strategy.

If you’d prefer to skip the startup phase, you might want to buy a blog that’s already built and earning revenue. This is actually pretty easy to do as a lot of people start blogs, and then get bored with them. Getting a blog going is a labor-intensive process, and it’s not uncommon for people to give up before they’ve reached their full potential.

Don’t do vending machines as passive income. I thought it was passive but it’s way more than that. You have to work all the time. If you get a good account, you’ll be there twice a week. Want another job as a stable income? Good luck. What do you tell your boss when you have to go fix your machine because a dollar got stuck and is only open during normal business hours?

The list of passive income ideas could go on forever. As you search for the best fit, keep an eye out for ideas that show positive long-term track records. Do other people make money on the idea? Has it come back to bite someone who tried it? Some people ask me about passive income options like drink, vending, or other rental machines in public places. The bottom line? Don’t fall for any passive income ideas that promise a quick return or require huge amounts of money upfront. They will sabotage your other financial goals. Look for ideas that are steady, profitable, and trustworthy. Do your research. And never go into debt!
Finally, we will be investing in stocks for dividend income. Dividend income is the distribution of earnings from companies’ stock that is paid out quarterly and sometimes monthly. We will be investing in around 10-15 stocks that have a high dividend yield. For more information on what stocks we are picking and how dividend income works, check out this (link).

​Network marketing, or multi-level marketing, seems to be on the rise. Companies such as Young Living Oils, Avon, Pampered Chef, and AdvoCare are all multi-level marketing companies. You can earn passive income through network marketing by building a team underneath you (often referred to as a down line.) Once you have a large team you can earn commissions off of their sales without having to do much.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but people who regularly monitor their finances end up wealthier than those who don’t. When you were a kid, keeping track of all of your money in a porcelain piggy bank was pretty easy. As we get older, though, our money becomes spread out across things like car payments, mortgages, retirement funds, taxes, and other investments and debts. All of these things make keeping track of our money a lot more complicated.

I get excited every paycheck because I know my investments are going to increase by a decent chunk. I use Mint to keep a close eye on what the current value is at and make goal marks to hit. Every time I hit a goal, I do a little happy dance and decide what I want my next marker to be and when I want to hit it by. I’m nowhere close to being financially independent or even debt free, but it’s exciting to see the ground work being laid and watching it grow.
There was a time when CDs would produce a respectable 4%+ yield. Nowadays, you’ll be lucky to find a 5-7 year CD that provides anything above 2.5% The great thing about CDs is that there are no income or net worth minimums to invest, unlike many alternative investments, which require investors to be accredited. Anybody can go to their local bank and open up a CD of their desired duration. Furthermore, a CD is FDIC insured for up to $250,000 per individual, and $500,000 per joint account.
Personal finance software can go a long way in helping you to take control of your money and meeting your financial goals. It’s important to note, however, that some focus more on budgeting and expense tracking while others prioritize investing portfolios and income taxes. Explore several different programs and read reviews to find the one that’s right for you.
Well, it can be. It can certainly be easier to make money online compared to many other things. However, making money online can take individuals on many detours, which end up costing them a lot more than they planned. Of course it is possible. For example; some blogs and real estate companies do make millions over the web, but they have invested in content, design, and strategy.
7. Royalties: the creation of music, books, inventions, machines, patents. A royalty is something you have sold or created and put it on a platform that you do not run and then receive compensation based on when the item is purchased or used. Most of us do not have the potential to quickly create royalty streams. Not to say you couldn’t specialize in something and write an ebook or if you are musically inclined you couldn’t write a song, but to create true residual income, that is going to take a lot of effort and skill. This is the purest form of passive residual income, if you can achieve it.
Venture Debt – I invested $120,000 in my business school friend’s venture debt fund. He started his own after spending 8 years at one of the largest venture debt funds as a Managing Partner. I’m very focused on income generating assets in this low interest rate environment. The true returns are yet to be seen, as the fund has a 5-7 year life before it returns all its capital.
Good suggestions. I have many of these. One word about the “app” idea. I had a great idea related to personal taxes that I tried to get off the ground with my accountant as a partner. I would say it’s difficult to do this unless you have a coder on your team. Hiring someone is not really viable financially unless the app is simple. When we finally got the quote for a coder to write what we wanted (and after doing lots of mock ups ourselves and getting a demo for investors) the estimate was about 750k just to really get started.
Residual income can have two different definitions or applications. The first definition, a less common application of residual income, is the money that is left after monthly debts are paid. This calculation is particularly important when a person is seeking financing or a loan based on their income and available money to cover the additional debt. In this scenario, the residual income is calculated by this formula:
#9 Military pension/VA disability. Obviously requires a lot of front end effort in your 20s and/or 30s depending on length of service however once out and receiving it is totally passive with cost of living adjustment included most years. It has changed somewhat with new “blended retirement” plan but even those not staying past first or second enlistments often will get some VA rating. My wife got it on both ends of her service as the Navy paid for med school and then she was rated by VA after seven years active duty.

Blooom: Blooom works very differently from many of the other robo-advisors. It helps specifically with your employer-sponsored accounts (401k, 403b, 401a, and 457 accounts). Blooom will go through all the investment choices and make adjustments for you. The service also automatically rebalances the account as it grows. Blooom is very inexpensive when compared to a traditional advisor at only $10 per month no matter how large your 401k grows.

Lending Club went public in 2014 and is now worth about $1.7B. They advertise P2P lending returns of over 7% for well-diversified portfolios of over 100 notes. I’ve personally been able to achieve a 7.4% annual return over the past two years in a completely passive way by investing in A and AA notes. Others have achieved a 10% annual return through relatively minimum effort.

The vast majority of people imagine working a forty hour week, and then earning a pay check for the job they have done. That is, in fact, how most people support themselves year after year. But did you know that it is possible to continue earning income even after you stop working. Creating a stream of residual income might be something you want to take a look into and get some more information on.

When you create residual income, you are taking a step towards making extra money in a manner that does not require constant effort. The stream of income is actually generated from something specific; a specific effort that you put forth to create the stream of income opportunity in the first place. Residual income is not always a passive manner of making money.
You’ve probably heard of affiliate marketing before – it’s when you earn a commission by promoting a product. The product you promote online should be something you’re knowledgeable about and that you believe is high quality. Common sense, right? You’d be surprised by how many affiliate marketers forget that principle, but that’s a whole other story.

Let’s use Jim from our personal finance example. Jim’s furniture manufacturer builds tables and has several large pieces of equipment in the sawmill used to re-saw logs and boards down to the finished dimensions. The sawmill has net operating revenues of $100,000 for year. The saws in the mill cost Jim a total of $500,000 and he is currently earning a return of 10% in his wholesale table business. Thus, he sets a minimum required return of 10 percent.

Active income, on the other hand, involves earning money in exchange for a service. It could be a salary, an hourly wage, commissions, or tips. It’s essentially a trade of your time for a fixed dollar amount. Most people choose to live this way, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, as long as you understand that there will be a limit to how much money you can realistically earn.
What I’m doing: My realistic goal is to have a blended annual return of 2x the risk free rate. With a current 5% hurdle, I am not paying down mortgages that cost less than 4%. Debt at 5% is a wash. My realistic blue sky scenario is a 3-4X rate of return over the risk free rate which can be achieved with property, stocks so far for the past five years, and certain private equity investments. Where I am dragging is my blended average CD interest rate of roughly 3% from an old CD coming due. I’ve rolled some money into a 12-month CD with CIT Bank at 2.5%. It’s the best rate I can find.
Many people talk about passive income and create the impression that you never have to do anything to keep that income going. The truth is that you will normally have to keep your eye on things if you want it to run smoothly. For example Richard Branson doesn’t run any of the 400+ companies he started but he goes over the numbers each day to make sure they’re performing well and calls the CEO if there are any problems.